Since a home environment is oftentimes more conducive to care and convalescense than a hospital, many invalids today are being cared for at home. In addition, the cost of long-term hospital or hospice care is extremely expensive and is ordinarily unavailable to the average person. Besides, the loving care of a relative can be far more therapeutic than that of a stranger even though a highly professional one.
However advantageous such home care may be, there are a number of problems which place the home care option at a disadvantage to other options such as hospitalization and nursing home placement. One problem of particular importance is associated with a patient who may be prone to either falling out of bed accidentally or deliberately leaving the bed when he or she is supposed to remain bedridden. Such is the case when a child has a disease such as cerebal palsy, epilepsy, autism, and the like or is mentally retarded for whatever reason. A child patient who ought to remain in bed is especially vulnerable when not being carefully watched.
While conventional invalid beds have restraints such as straps and the like, and do restrict movement of the patient, these straps are difficult to apply especially if the patient resists restraint. Perhaps more importantly, they often produce bed sores and are neither a compassionate nor optimum solution to the problem.
While many available hospital beds have some sort of railings to prevent egress from a bed, they are primarily intended to prevent a patient from accidentally falling out and are inadequate to prevent a patient who is physically capable of leaving the bed if he or she chooses to do so. These hospital beds while longer than a child's crib have low railings with wide spaces between the bars. A child might easily roll out of this bed and if he or she stood up could readily tumble or flip over onto the floor. The portable side rails that fit under a standard mattress are approximately 12 inches high; these might prevent a child from rolling out over the sides but not at the head or foot of the bed. Furthermore, there exists the possibility of the child rolling between the mattress and the rails thus making them unsuitable for the intended purpose.
The most relevant prior art is probably the special invalid bed disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,959,878 granted to Essek. This bed of a monolithic one-piece construction is designed for an adult patient with no movable railings and high side bars to prevent egress. The bed is sized for a twin mattress with storage area underneath. Instead of movable railings, it has a lockable door about 30 inches wide for entrance and exit. The disclosure is explicit in its objective to avoid movable railings which are held to be intended primarily to prevent a patient from accidentally falling out and are inadequate to restrain an adult patient if that patient is physically capable of getting out of the bed. These characteristics however, are ill-suited to restrain and service a multiply-disabled or medically needy child for example. There is therefore a requirement for a safety bed for children wih special needs.
It is a main object of the present invention to provide a crib-like safety bed for a disabled child that will fit a twin-size mattress and has a double fold-down railing on either one or both sides.
It is another object to provide this bed with rails high enough to prevent not only falling out but climbing out.
It is a further object to provide a bed wherein a swing-down panel is sufficient to allow for comfortable servicing of the child such as medicating, taking vital signs, washing and diaper changing.
It is yet another object to provide a bed wherein a slide-down panel will allow both railings to be lowered to mattress level in order to permit easy changing of bedding while permitting ready ingress and egress of the patient from and into a wheelchair.
It is another object to provide a bed with space and/or drawers underneath for storage of linen, bedding and diapers for example.
It is another object of the invention to provide a bed of wooden construction which can be blended in with the appearance of other furniture providing a home-like atmosphere being more congenial to a caring and healing environment.